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IBM To Demo Crusoe Thinkpad
CoreDump writes: "Just ran across this story at News.com about IBM announcing that they will demo a Crusoe based Thinkpad at PC Expo. This is what I've been waiting for, not an "appliance", but an actual full-blown system that can be used every day. They aren't planning products until the fourth quarter, but I know what *I* want to find under the tree on Dec. 25th.
"
We (and our future generations) will laugh at the statement, "...paving the way for a computer that could run all day on a single battery." just as much as we laugh at, "640k ought to be enough for anybody." now... ;-)
I can't wait.
-Adam
There's so much bad in the best of us
and so much good in the worst of us
that it doesn't behoove any of us
to talk about the rest of us.
Yes, indeed. Ages ago in computer years, Intel came out with that marvelous piece of silicon known as the 486-SX. Elves throughout the Intel plant worked strenuously with a scratch awl, digging out that floating point silicon.
These days, Intel doesn't have the time, nor the resources, to engage in such operations themselves. They've got Xeons to pump out. So they've partnered with Transmeta, who are proud to introduce . . .
Crusoe- also known as . . .
. . . the Pentium-SX ! ! !
For those light duty machines ladies often carry in their handbags. Truly the derringer of microprocessors.
There is an excellent document entitled The Technology Behind Crusoe(tm) Processors describing the Crusoe's unique software/hardware hybrid available at http://www.crusoe.com/cr usoe/download/pdf/crusoetechwp.pdf. It details how a simple, custom VLIW-like core is combined with a software "code morphing" layer to produce an out-of-order execution unit which is far more sophisticated than than current hardware designs (like the P6 architecture).
The key to lower heat output is lower power consumption. The Crusoe accomplishes this in the following ways:
u soetechwp.pdf
1. By performing scheduling and the like in software, the Crusoe has far fewer transistors (read ~1/4) than a PIII or Athlon. Hence, lower power consumption.
2. In addition, Crusoe has a power management "system" that actually lowers the clock speed whenever less speed is needed. All chips should do that, but they don't. And it doesn't slow down memory access at all, since the bottleneck there is not the processor clock speed. This technology is referred to as LongRun. Here's a quote from Transmeta:
"In a mobile setting, most conventional x86 CPUs regulate their power consumption by rapidly alternating between running the processor at full speed and (in effect) turning the processor off. Different performance levels can be obtained by varying the on/off ratio (the "duty cycle"). However, with this approach, the processor may be shut off just when a time-critical application needs it. This can result in glitches, such as dropped frames during movie playback, that are perceptible (and annoying) to a user.
In contrast, the TM5400 can adjust its power consumption without turning itself off - instead, it can adjust its clock frequency on the fly. It does so extremely quickly, and without requiring an operating system reboot or other slow and involved OS or BIOS operation. As a result, software can continuously monitor the demands on
the processor and dynamically pick just the right clock speed (and hence power consumption) needed to run the application - no more and no less - so no power is wasted. Since the switching happens so quickly, it is not noticeable to the user.
Finally, the Code Morphing software can also adjust the Crusoe processor's voltage on the fly (since at a lower operating frequency, a lower voltage can be used). Because power varies linearly with clock speed and by the square of the voltage, adjusting both can produce cubic reductions in power consumption, whereas conventional CPUs can adjust power only linearly. For example, assume an application program only requires 90 percent of the processor's speed. On a conventional processor, throttling back the processor speed by 10 percent cuts power by 10 percent, whereas under the same conditions, LongRun power management can reduce power by almost 30 percent (0.903 = 0.73) - a noticeable advantage!"
For more information I highly recommend everybody to read "The Technology Behind Crusoe(TM) Processors".
Available at:
http://www.transmeta.com/crusoe/download/pdf/cr
Speed and memory both seem to follow Moore's law*, but batteries haven't doubled in capacity in a decade, and longer before that, and power consumption has similarly been slow to come down.
These are both things that will be used if they're available. Like processor speed and memory, the raw figures double, but your computing experience isn't 64 times as fast as it was in 1991, even if your modem is.
It'll either be a long time before your laptop will run easily on a battery for a day, or it'll be a breakthrough product/configuration, not a steady improvement.
*Moore's law actually originally said the number of transistors on a chip would double every year. This was stretched to 18 months a decade later to fit the data, then applied to processor speed, price (inverse), and memory, whenever it seemed nifty to do so.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
It just seems that by the time this comes out, Intel will already have much faster
And don't forget, lower-power-consumption chips. Check it out:
"[Paul Otellini, co-executive vice president at the Intel Architecture Group, in Santa Clara, Calif.] reviewed Intel's ongoing investments in mobile processors, including a demonstration of a 500MHz Mobile Pentium III that operates at less than 1 watt of power, which Intel expects to ramp to 1GHz in the near future. Intel hopes the chip will be ready this summer...."
Intel eyes Internet as next frontier to cross. (Company Business and Marketing) Dan Briody
InfoWorld May 1, 2000 v22 i18 p5
Web version:
Friday, Apr. 28, 2000
What on earth is wrong with IBM ?
Sure they have some press releases coming out but generally it's just "Ohh we have this cool thing working now. Go buy it". Why can't they be like other companies that announce products 2 or 3 years before the planed ship date?
IBM lately has been delivering on it's promises on time and quickly. So far the only thing wrong in IBM's "Linux Roadmap" is that the Thinkpads haven't had the broad level of Linux support I would like. Sure some models run flawlessly but most of them need a PCMCIA modem and some simply have broken sound or even video in extreme cases.
Apart from that they are doing pretty damned well. Now what are the odds that this box at ship time ( Christmas? ) will have the kind of seamless 100% compatible Linux support people have been screaming for? Sure some of them will ship with Windows but Knowing IBM they might say "If you use our approved Linux distributions your warranty is still valid".
PS : The headline is the title of a song.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
With the same power consumption, and at comparable cost (maybe?), as a P3 laptop, they could make a multiprocessor Crusoe system that blows away anything else out there.
Or we could all go do things that aren't insane, but what fun would that be?
I don't know about Linus, but here's Alan Cox on a Chip.
Nope, Moore's law started out as doubling every one year, as quoted 25 years ago in The Mythical Man-Month, and more recently in the Internet.com Webopedia.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
Shine on, you crazy diamond.
...which provided a dual headded processor bus capable of supporting not only the native ARM chips but a second processor of practicaly any architecture...
Acorn have been doing this sort of thing for a much longer time than 93/94. Anyone who remembers the Acorn BBC B/Master, may well remember a strange connector under the main unit marked "Tube". This was actually a bus connector for a co-pro. If i remember correctly, Z80 & 6502 units were both available, and this is back in the mid 80's.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
That's the first time I've heard of him being called a "philanthropist". Most of the time everyone is acusing him of destroying countries' monetary systems.
Jason PollockUse a system like VMware, but with just a simple shared windowing system for the 'boot' OS, you could run windows, linux, MacOS, BeOS, and what have you at the same time, without one being a 'dominant' OS.
Of course, the real beauty comes when you can download the instruction set for Playstation, PS2, Dreamcast, TiVo, or any other embedded system you care to and service all your computing needs with one box.
Well, two if you count the handheld version with PalmOS, NewtonOS, LinuxCE, WAPOS, NokiaOS, etc.
Suddenly the application is the OS...
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
I would like to comment here that Transmeta has never (that I recall) said they would have the fastest chip on the block. If they have, they've certainly not been asserting it much. What they have said is that they will have comparable performance and flawless emulation at a dramatically lower current draw.
Transmeta's goal isn't to bring you the most powerful chip around. Intel and AMD are both fighting to have that honor right now, and there's not much room for the little guy there. However, they do intend to have the best current-to-power ratio (I couldn't resist) and we've all seen how well they're doing. It's not like you can take the MediaGX chip seriously or anything.
In summary, for anyone who's read this far down and still not gotten it, Crusoe isn't about SpecFP95. It's about wattage.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"